How to watch from overseas, plus a guide to Contest – Deadline


The Coronation was but the warm-up event. This coming Saturday sees the UK play host to the 67th Eurovision Song Contest and venue city Liverpool is pulling out all the stops. 

Sunday evening even saw local chart-toppers – from 40 years ago – Frankie Goes to Hollywood reunite after an acrimonious split in 1987. The band, responsible for huge hits ‘Relax’ and ’Two Tribes’, took to the stage at an outdoor event in Liverpool which signalled the beginning of this special Eurovision week for the city.

Frankie fans were delighted to see the band back together, although they were left bemused by them playing only one song ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ before lead vocalist Holly Johnson told fans, “Bless you. Lovely to see you all,” and the band left the stage.

Ukrainian presence

The UK is playing host in place of last year’s winners Ukraine, who would traditionally host but are prevented this year by war. The UK came second last year with its entry Sam Ryder, and the BBC as broadcaster has made it clear Ukrainian music, culture and artists will be central to the event.

Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina will be one of four main presenters of the Contest throughout the week, joining singer Alesha Dixon, actress Hannah Waddingham and regular UK commentator Graham Norton.

How it works 

Prior to the Grand Final on Saturday May 13, there will be two semi-finals on Tuesday 9 and Thursday 11th. 

37 countries will be competing from the outset. 10 countries from each of the two semi-finals – see list below – will qualify for the Grand Final that will feature a total of 26 countries: 10 from semi-final 1, 10 from semi-final 2, last year’s winners Ukraine, plus ‘the big 5’ countries (those who’ve contributed sufficiently to the European Broadcasting Union): Spain, France, Italy, Germany and the UK. 

Enjoy samples from all the contenders here…

The favourite going into this year’s competition is the Swedish entry ‘Tattoo’ sung by Loreen. She is a previous winner of the competition from 2012. If she secures a double victory, she will be the only female artist to have won twice, and only the second artist in Eurovision history. The other is Irish singer Johnny Logan, who won twice as a vocalist in 1980 and 1987, and then again as a songwriter in 1992.

Controversy

As with so many previous Contests, this year’s competition has not been without controversy ahead of the Final week. 

Russia will not be taking part in the Contest for the second year running. The country, which won in 2008 and has participated 23 times since joining in 1994, was excluded from last year’s Contest due to its invasion of Ukraine. Russian broadcasters VGTRK and Channel One announced soon afterwards it would suspend its membership of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) which manages the Contest. 

The suspension was endorsed by the EBU in May 2022, preventing Russia from joining in with any Eurovision events until the day their membership is resumed.

Besides Russia’s absence, the validity of the Greek entry – Victor Veronicas singing ‘What They Say’ – has been questioned by the lawyer of another Greek singer, Melissa Mantzoukis, who failed to win her country’s heat. Her lawyer said the voting process was flawed, but failed to have the result overturned.

How to watch & ratings

Host broadcaster BBC has dedicated a huge team and hours of radio and TV airtime to this year’s event. As well as live coverage of the Contest itself, there are special programmes throughout the week looking at the history of the contest, hits and singers to have emerged from it over the years – from Abba to Celine Dion to Italian rockers Maneskin – and dozens of regular TV and radio magazine shows scheduled to be broadcast live from Liverpool.

Organizers will be hoping that the global audience for this year’s Contest will bounce back on last year.

The European Broadcasting Union revealed last year that viewing figures across the three live shows came in at 161 million TV viewers, a drop of 22 million from 2021. The exclusion of biggest market Russia will account for part of that drop. The UK was last year’s lead market in terms of eyeballs with 8.9 million tuning in to see Sam Ryder finish second. 

All live shows this year are available to watch on the official Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel (if available in your region), and a number of non-participating nations will also be broadcasting the Contest. It will be available in the US on Peacock. Other broadcasters include RTBF in Belgium, Canal 13 SPA in Chile and MKRTV in North Macedonia.

Semi-Final 1:

Norway; Malta; Serbia; Latvia; Portugal; Ireland; Croatia; Switzerland; Israel; Moldova; Sweden; Azerbaijan; Czechia; Netherlands; Finland

Semi-Final 2:

Denmark; Armenia; Romania; Estonia; Belgium; Cyprus; Iceland; Greece; Poland; Slovenia; Georgia; San Marino; Austria; Albania; Lithuania; Australia




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